A couple of major factors:

Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.

Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).

Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft’s generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. Seeing as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.

I think it’s just because it was the dominant monetization scheme when they were introduced, people got used to spending nothing up front on their mobile games. Then there are other barriers. Like why would I pay $15 for Stardew Valley when it probably won’t work with a controller or output comfortably to a TV. You can do some of that stuff sometimes in mobile, but there’s no enforcement of it, so that means you’re getting a lesser version of the game, which drives the price down. I wanted to revisit Planescape: Torment on mobile, but they ported it to Android too long ago, and now it just doesn’t work with modern Android OSes. They’re really teaching me to not treat mobile as a place where people like me should expect to find stuff to play.

Because dweebs like you keep throwing money at garbage.

Not that it succeeded long term, but I salute Apple Arcade’s venture on this. It’s a subscription service that aimed to highlight iPhone games that had no monetization, and were usually small indie games with a fun idea.

I think it’s cultural differences. In the west, we abhor pay to win and predatory aspects. But in Korea, China and other countries in that region, players demand it.

So then it comes down to which market region you’re targeting. If you’re not a NA/EU mobile developer, how do you choose? 🤷‍♂️ Can’t keep everyone happy.

Have you ever sat in front of a casino’s slot machine. They are also trash, awful and disgusting. But they’re also engineered with the worst dark pattern psychology to manipulate any human being that sits on it to keep playing and be so addictive that people will burn their money just to keep playing. The qualities of fun, and additive are independent of each other. A game can be very addictive and really bad at the same time. Unlike slot machines, they have the advantage of constantly sitting in your pocket and going with you everywhere you go.

Mobile games are the equivalent of those “100 great games pack”-type CDROMS you’d find in the electronics section of stores in the late 90s/early 2000s. Not many invest serious money and time into gaming on a tablet or phone like they do on a console or PC, because games on phones and tablets are more like an afterthought. Something to do in between group chats and work emails.

Yep, getting people to pay $40-60 bucks for a mobile game is basically impossible, and as a result the business model is either F2P or $3-5 bucks with egregious monetization to earn back the costs.

There are plenty of good mobile games, the problem is none of em get promoted on Google Play, finding em is like a fucking treasure hunt.

Because they make a lot of money.

what shocks me is that nintendo never made some new pokemon games in their old GBA or DS style. it would be perfectly suited to phone limitations and expectations and there is a huge potential market for that style of game.

Most mobile game developers just want to attract whales. People who spend thousands of dollars in their app. They don’t care about everyone else because they don’t make any money off anyone else.

For some games, 20% of players spend $1800 or more a year. One of those people spent $90k.

So if your game sucks for everyone else, it’s not a big loss.

Mobile games are designed like junk-food: take it out, eat some junk, then put it away to go do something else, throw away the bag or seal it for a quick snack later. Normal games are designed like a full meal: sit down somewhere with good atmosphere, nutritious, good conversation, get full and go home with plenty of leftovers and good memories

Shoutout to Slay the Spire, Balatro, and Slice & Dice. They all cost a bit (around 10€) but are excellent ports of the originals and among the best mobile games. Slice & Dice even started out as a mobile game and was ported to PC later.

There are good mobile games, but you typically have to pay for them.